I had a happy childhood until age 15 when my family moved from Paducah, KY to Abilene, TX.  That separated me from my friends and my first love, a high school cheerleader.  One day my Dad and I had an argument about religion that led to my quitting school at age 15 and leaving home.  I caught a bus to Florida where I worked the summer of 1944 in the citrus groves and packing houses.  In the fall of 1944 I sought better paying work in Louisville, KY, first in a steel mill and then with a large printing company as a pressman.  With WW-II underway jobs were easy to find and no one questioned my age.  That is, except the Army and Navy recruiters who saw through my lies about age – I just looked too darned young.  The draft board in Louisville employed old ladies so I approached them reluctantly with “I just turned 18, I don’t really have to register do I”, and they registered me for the draft.  Now they had rules that if violated would result in your immediate call-up.  So after a month, I went to live with my parents who were now residing in Georgia.  I went to the local draft-board to report my change of address, telling them that I had had three changes of address since registering, and didn’t intend to tell them every time I moved – this resulted in my immediate induction into the Army at age 16.   

My first job in the Army was as an MP pulling town patrol in St. Louis, MO.  WW-II combat troops were returning from overseas and we had to deal with lots of drunk military on the streets of St. Louis.  They were guys that had seen some bad stuff and the city police didn’t want to treat them as street drunks.  We rode one MP to a city police cruiser to take the military guys off their hands.  From St. Louis I was assigned to the 5^th Army Honor Guard in downtown Chicago.  We pulled town patrol in the ‘Loop’ area and guarded the Headquarters.  Our weekends were spent in parades thru downtown Chicago or as the military burial detail for the thousands of killed-in-action that were returned to their Chicago homes for re-interment.  When I finished with my Army tour I was honorably discharged.   

A month later (the summer of 1947) I re-enlisted and gave my correct age.  I was assigned to the Army Security Agency at Vint Hills Farm, VA.  From there I went to Herzo base, Germany where I was assigned to the 2^nd RSM in Morse Intercept.  I became accomplished at copying code in operations at Herzo and later at Darmstadt.  At that time Morse operators were kept in the dark about what they were copying.  I kept a card file and notes (in ops) on carriers, modulation, keying and traffic and could occasionally come up with call-sign and frequency changes days before TA told us about them.  The TA folks didn’t appreciate my little sideline activity.   

In the early summer of 1949 Sgt. Draughon and I were selected to attend the EC Intel School (Russian language) and after six months returned to Darmstadt in Voice Intercept.  In June 1950 2^nd Lt Pearsall and I surveyed and set up our Berlin operation, fusing radar tracking with Voice Intercepts.  In our early Berlin operation we were without TA or DF support; however, we had our own area radar scopes and could see our targets as they took off, formed up, conducted training exercises or other operations.  We could readily tie Russian air traffic to the airfields, etc.  Our product was couriered back to the Zone.  

Most of the things that I consider accomplishments were often the result of disappointments.  While in Berlin I put in the papers to marry my German girlfriend and was immediately returned to Darmstadt and losing my need-to-know.  On return to CONUS I was assigned as an instructor in the Keesler AFSS intercept operator school - a boring job that didn’t utilize my skills. 

At Keesler I applied for AF Flight Training only to find that I couldn't pass the eye test (a color deficiency).  That let down resulted in my learning to fly on my own, and in flying over the next 43 years I accumulated 1900 plus hours pilot-in-command time in single and multi-engine aircraft, as a private, commercial, instrument and instructor pilot.  I worked after hours at El Toro marine air station and Orange County airport as a flight instructor in single and multi-engine with primary, commercial and instrument students.  For many years I flew my family from California to the East coast to visit family and relatives.  I’ve flown in visual and instrumentation conditions in the US, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Alaska, including a dead-reckoning flight in bad weather to the Arctic coast then westward to Point Barrow.  In northwestern Canada and the Yukon I flew some nasty weather navigating by the old HF Radio-Ranges (dit-dah_dah-dit lobes), before they were decommissioned.  I’ve flown instrument approaches on ILS to minimums, and once a GCA gyro-out approach from the right-seat to below minimums (ceiling of 100 ft).  Although having a few in-flight emergencies I always landed safely and never put a scratch on an airplane.  

In Germany with 2^nd RSM I took several college courses with the University of Maryland under the WW-II GI-Bill.  On returning to CONUS the VA told me my GI-Bill was terminated since they did not recognize a military transfer as a valid reason for the interruption of schooling.  That made me mad as hell, so I took it on my own to get my BSMS (UofMd), BSEE (UofNM) and MSEE (CSU), of course with the help of AF programs like 'bootstrap'.  While stationed in Sunnyvale CA a friend Maj. Bill and I applied for an AF program that would assign us to a University for 2-years to get our Masters in electronics engineering.  We were both accepted, Bill for a 2-year program at Stanford University and me for 2-year masters program at the AF Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH.  I considered AFIT to be just another AF tech school and told them to cancel my request.  I then took after-hour courses at Cal State University until I was within 6-months of a Masters and was then accepted for completion under the AF bootstrap program.  I was back at work with my MSEE six months before Bill returned from Stanford.  

At Keesler after being turned down for AF Flight School, I applied for and was accepted for OCS - this was my exit from AFSS.  My first assignment as an officer was at Fairchild AFB, WA as maintenance officer for all their ground electronics systems - Fairchild had two Wings of the SAC B-36s.  As a 2^nd Lt I caught lots of hell at the Wing commanders’ staff meetings.  Then when I had an 18-mo daughter and a pregnant-wife the AF assigned me to a remote radar site on the Arctic coast of Alaska.  Although I enjoyed my remote Arctic tour I felt that I needed a change in career fields.  So, In 1957 I applied for a 2-year assignment to Univ. of NM to get my BS in Electronic Engineering.  On graduating I asked for and was assigned to the AF Ballistic Missile Division (BMD) for further assignment to the BMD engineering team working with AF contractors at Cheyenne, WY to install, commission, and turn over to SAC the first three ICBM groups (Atlas-D and Atlas-E ICBMs); we had some failures, but it was a significant achievement at the time.  After completing this job I was assigned to the AF satellite test program at Lockheed's Sunnyvale, CA facility wearing civilian clothes.  The early AF satellite programs we were involved in had names like Discover, MIDAS, Samos, and others most with just numbered names.  After the first year we moved across the street from Lockheed to a new AF facility known as the Satellite Test Center (STC).  We had tracking stations all over the globe and a Recovery Group in Hawaii that caught the first recce capsule returned from orbit.   From Sunnyvale I was assigned to General Bernard Schriever staff at Systems Command Hq, Andrews AFB, MD on a team that went to our AFSS centers to review weapon developments supporting the Viet Nam war.  This was an interesting assignment that gave me access to the TS briefing films on the SE Asia conflict, including our covert operations.  I had a one-on-one discussion with General Schriever on some of the Command's 'firsts', from his top down view.  In Aug 1966 I retired from the USAF after 21 years active duty, seven being as an enlisted man.  As I've noted, my military career from a personal sense had a few disappointment, but also a few rewards.

Now to civilian life:  On leaving the AF I had lots of job offers - several from friends in NASA (at the Cape and in Houston) and from contractors with whom I had worked.  I decided that I would not accept a job from any of my past acquaintances - I wanted a clean break.  So I accepted a job with the Autonetics Div of North American Aviation (NAA) in Anaheim, CA.  After my 2nd-year at Autonetics, NAA was merged into Rockwell International, and 28-yrs later (after I retired) into the Boeing Co.  I started as a System Engineer in the Astrionics Division working satellite systems, and then was in Engineering and Project/Program management working guidance and control systems for the Minuteman II and III, MX, Peacekeeper, and Rail Garrison missile systems. 

One day when everything was going great on Minuteman III my past caught up with me.  A friend of mine, Hal M. a manager whom I had worked with on a black-world satellite recce proposal, entered my office.  When he started with "Virg, what have you done for your country lately", I tossed him out.  The next morning our Division VP was in my office telling me to go work on this new black-world proposal with Hal (of course "black-world" means "the other agency", and we just referred to them as our "advisors".  We won the proposal as the prime contractor on the IBEX Program.  IBEX was an Iranian SIGINT system development and activation, including ground and airborne collection and analysis targeting Iraq, who at the time was armed and trained by the Soviets and was threatening Iran.  I was a program manager on IBEX and spent considerable time in Teheran working with the Iranian AF, our "advisors", and associate contractors.  On one of my trips to Teheran three of our Rockwell in-country managers (all good friends of mine) were on their way to work when a terrorist group blocked their car and murdered them.  They were not armed.   I had finished my work early the previous day and rescheduled my flight to leave for the US the night before killings - before that, I usually rode with them in their car to work.  The Rockwell folks thought I was missing and asked our "advisor" help in locating me.  Background: I had torn-up my company-provided airline tickets to NY and flown my own plane from California to Raleigh, NC (this was against company rules) and purchased a ticket to NY to catch the flight to Teheran.  On return from Iran I planned to fly my plane from Raleigh to the Bahamas for a two-week vacation with family.  On arriving in Raleigh I planned to spend the night with a friend before leaving for the Caribbean.  I had told no one of my flight or vacation plans.  When I got to my friend’s house he wasn't home but the workmen painting his house asked "if your name is Fordham call your office immediately".  I didn't know I had left a trail but the "advisors" had found me.  That's how I got the bad news about the ambush, but I didn't let that change my vacation plans.  Our Iranian program lasted until the Shah was overthrown.  The Iranians later sued us in the World Court for not finishing the contract, i.e. delivering the SIGINT equipment and aircraft.  Rockwell countered sued the Iranians and were awarded more money from the lawsuit than we had made in our five years of working IBEX... This return to SIGINT was my interlude between Minutemen and MX-Peacekeeper-Rail Garrison assignments.  I left (retired from) Autonetics after the cold war ended with 26-years service, and then for eight years taught math and computer science at Fullerton College.  Teaching young adults was a nice experience after so many years working cold war stuff... 

For pastime diversions I turned to the sports; flying, jumping, scuba, and skiing.  I logged almost 2,000 hours of pilot time from 1960 to 2003 in more than 35 different kinds of aircraft, from Piper J-3 Cubs to Cessna 310 twins, both flying and instructing (basic, instrument and aerobatic).  During this time I owned four airplanes, two Pipers (a 1959 twin-Apache & a 1968 Arrow which I kept for 30-yrs); and two new Cessna 150 models.  In jumping/parachuting with over 500 freefalls (D-License and SCR/SCS) I won First Place in two competition meets, and in 14 years of jumping I only had three chute malfunctions with cut-aways.  For fun I once jumped an F-4 fighter drag-chute cutting it away before landing.  In July 1971 I did a midnight demo jump at Point Barrow.  In scuba diving I managed to get 130 open water dives (in the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf) on reefs and wrecks over a 6-year period.  My first skiing was in 1946 on Mt. Rainier WA, and next month after my 80th birthday, my wife and I have reservations at a ski lodge in the Mammoth/June Mt ski area.  They let anyone over 80 ski free.  I also managed in 1949 to ski the Zugspitze near Garmisch and in 1977 the northern mountains of Iran. 

I continue to enjoy relatively good health.